India's dodgy mass surveillance project should concern us all

India is undertaking the world’s largest biometric ID card project – Aadhaar, also dubbed the "the world's biggest mass surveillance project". The government seems unaware, or unconcerned, that because of an inadequate legal framework for protecting citizens’ privacy this project will have catastrophic consequences. This overzealous project is obtaining demographic and biometric information and being forced upon Indian citizens, with no choice for an individual to opt-out of the system. The Indian government has claimed that setting up Aadhaar would establish a system of protection against wastage and corruption in the dispensation of social benefits.This draconian ID system is linking with every aspect of an individual’s life, from booking train tickets, registering marriages, or seeking scholarships, to mobile phone numbers, bank accounts, and schools and colleges. In many of these cases, it is mandatory.Thus, the government can exert absolute control by cross-referencing all transactions authenticated by or linked with Aadhaar. Indian society and politics has gone through a tectonic shift and is now in the grip of ‘absolutism’. Amid mounting governmental pressure, more than a billion Indians have signed up for Aadhaar. The aggregation of this data, along with various other data sets interlinked to Aadhaar, will enable the government to trace the movements, social relationships, and interactions of residents so that their private lives are laid bare. Seemingly innocuous, data when collated is capable of profiling residents’ lives. Once such data is in the government’s hands, wide latitude in access and use facilitates government abuse. Indeed, coercive application of Aadhaar creates a potential for mass surveillance, which in turn threatens the privacy of Indian citizens. We argue that this systemic mass invasion of privacy will diminish citizens’ autonomy of decision making: the choice of what to make public or keep private will no longer be theirs. In a high-octane, emotionally charged democracy like India, the fear of backlash will stop individuals from expressing disagreement with the government; they will increasingly self-censor their speech and interactions. Subjecting citizens to greater scrutiny and control will tilt the already imbalanced dynamics between the administration and the citizens, leading to erosion of democracy.